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Updated: July 26, 2025
"I say," said Tommy, when both the boys were in bed, "the Old Owl was right, and we must stick to it. But I'll tell you what I don't like, and that is Father thinking we're idle still. I wish he knew we were the Brownies." "So do I," said Johnnie; and he sighed.
The Old Owl shook out a tuft or two of fluff, and set her eyes a-going and began: "The Brownies, or, as they are sometimes called, the Small Folk, the Little People, or the Good People, are a race of tiny beings who domesticate themselves in a house of which some grown-up human being pays the rent and taxes.
Ewing's stories for children, The Brownies, with Amelia and the Dwarfs and Timothy's Shoes, are inimitable, and her Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales are very good, but not for very young children. Her other stories are certainly about children, but are, as a rule, written for adults. George Macdonald's stories are all too well known and too universally beloved to need recommendation.
It is a matter of intense regret that so very few people have sufficiently clear remembrance of their own childhood to help them to understand the taste and point of view of the normal child. There is a passage in the "Brownies," by Mrs. Ewing, which illustrates the confusion created in the child mind by a facetious allusion in a dramatic moment which needed a more direct treatment.
But long before the place was tidy, he could wait no longer, and dressed up. "Look at me!" he shouted; "bottle-green and brass buttons! Oh, Johnnie, I wish you had some." "It's a good thing there are two Brownies," said Johnnie, laughing, "and one of them in rags still. I shall do the work this morning." And he went flourishing round with a broom, while Tommy jumped madly about in his new suit.
"Tuwhoo, tuwhoo!" screamed the old owl; "so it's the brownies you are after, is it? Tuwhoo, tuwhoo! Go look in the mill pond. Tuwhoo, tuwhoo! Go look in the water at midnight, and you'll see one. By the light of the moon a brownie you'll see, to be sure, but such a lazy one! Tuwhoo, tuwhoo!" screamed the old owl; and, flapping her wings, she went sailing away in the moonlight.
She was also both careless and lazy, and disliked taking the trouble to put a bowl of milk in the same place every night for Mr. Nobody. "She didn't believe in Brownies," she said; "she had never seen one, and seeing's believing." So she laughed at the other servants, who looked very grave, and put the bowl of milk in its place as often as they could, without saying much about it.
"I couldn't make it at night, as the brownies would have done, but couldn't I leave it, as they left their gifts, just where it is sure to be found? It would be much nicer, wouldn't it? Miss Rose would laugh, and be so pleased. I am sure she would like to have it that way."
It seemed curious and strange to come out into the park, in glowing sunshine, among living human beings. It was Christmas night, a real Christmas night. The goblins raised the mountain roofs on lofty gold pillars and celebrated the midwinter festival. The brownies danced around the Christmas porridge in new red caps. Not very far away, at the old manor of Årsta, Mamsell Fredrika was lying asleep.
And yet how often have these sleepless Brownies done him honest service, and given him, as he sat idly taking his pleasure in the boxes, better tales than he could fashion for himself. Here is one, exactly as it came to him. It seemed he was the son of a very rich and wicked man, the owner of broad acres and a most damnable temper.
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